ASP.NET Core 2 default route having areas

Question

cI went through various posts regarding the Areas routing but still I am not able to resolve my issue.

I would like to split my application in the way that there are two routes.

• /Areas/Panel
• /Areas/Website

Inside each area there is HomeController and appropriate methods that correspond to actions.

I would like that whenever user lands to any level 1 route i.e.:

• /home
• /contact
• /about/company
• etc.

is directed to /Areas/Website/{controller}/{action}

and alternatively for

• /panel
• /panel/home
• /panel/users/2
• etc

to /Areas/Panel/{controller}/{action}

My current MVC route is:

   app.UseMvc(routes =>
        {
            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "default",
                template: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");

            routes.MapRoute(
                name: "area",
                template: "{area:exists}/{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
        });

but it isn't working, probably because I don't fully understand how tell the router to use Website area as default. I tried various directives right before the controller itself but it did not work.

Could I ask for your advice?

Thank you in advance.

Protectionism

Answer 1

One reason it doesn't work because you have the routes registered in the wrong order. The routes are evaluated from the top to the bottom of the route table and the first match wins.

Another issue is that you need to make the "default" route into an area route (using the MapAreaRoute extension method) if you want it to direct requests to the Website area.

app.UseMvc(routes =>
{
    routes.MapRoute(
        name: "area",
        template: "{area:exists}/{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");

    routes.MapAreaRoute(
        name: "default",
        areaName: "Website",
        template: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
});

Reference: Why map special routes first before common routes in asp.net mvc?

Linguist

Hello, no luck unfortunately. I tried the other way around. It works when I go to: /Website/Home then I receive an error: InvalidOperationException: The view 'Index' was not found. The following locations were searched: /Views/Home/Index.cshtml /Views/Shared/Index.cshtml which makes sense as the desired view is not directly in the project but in Website/Views. I was thinking about something like template: "Areas/Website/{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}") but this isn't working either. – Protectionism

Thank you. I think the right point is regarding areaName because that's what seems missing to me but unfortunately I am getting an error: Error CS1739 The best overload for 'MapRoute' does not have a parameter named 'areaName'. So it seems the issue is how to point to the right area for the default declaration... – Protectionism

Change MapRoute to MapAreaRoute (see my answer). – Linguist